For what is a sport if it has heroes, and not villains?
What’s the point of celebrating James Tedesco if we can’t also heckle Jared Waerea-Hargreaves? How boring would it be if there was no Nick Kyrgios on the other side of the net? Why just cheer for Steve Smith when you can also sledge Stuart Broad?
As most of those villains know, the transformation from one to the other can be near impossible.
But as much as racing is an unforgiving beast, it is also open to forgiveness.
Bookmakers joke about making statues to regularly beaten favourites, but watch the punters line up again next time. A lifetime in racing is usually a week, dependent on the vagaries of race results and pot luck.
And never has a horse straddled the hero-villain divide as seamlessly as Nature Strip.
James McDonald and Nature Strip stretch the legs at Rosehill on Thursday morning.Credit:Nick Moir/SMH
One day, nothing could catch him. The next he was like the schoolkid who would go charging out in a cross country race like he was Usain Bolt trying to break sub-10 seconds for the 100 metres – and then fall in a heap.
In a sport full of uncertainty, he was the living breathing example, because no-one knew exactly what he was going to do next.
“He was a bit of an enigma really: one day he would be brilliant, the next he would be terrible because he would tear away and do things wrong,” shrugs his trackwork rider Stuart Williams. “But I respect him and think the world of him.”
So, too, does trainer Chris Waller.
For all of his remarkable training feats, including Winx’s 33-race winning sequence, he could hardly say he has had a project like Nature Strip.
The sprinter had four Victorian trainers before he got to Waller and looked like being a talent largely unfulfilled due to his aggressive racing style and penchant for burning out at the back end of races. If the Everest was as short as a greyhound race then Nature Strip would have won all of them, but 1200 metres at Royal Randwick? It never seemed possible.
The little details never escape Waller.
Before he won last year’s The Everest, the trainer asked for a barrier extension because Nature Strip was so big and getting cramped in the stalls. It was affecting his concentration at the start of races. He duly came out and won.
So how has he finally managed to turn Nature Strip, at eight years of age, into the relaxed and relentless machine dubbed the world’s best shortcourser?
“It’s just a puzzle you’ve got to put together,” Waller says. “Everything just takes so much time. First of all, you’ve got to have the horse to work with and they’ve got to have the ability.
“We set about trying to give horses confidence, and that’s by looking after them and they slowly work it out themselves. If you consistently give a horse a good experience they’ll consistently do their best for you.
“He’s got an amazing engine and it’s just like any sport, Formula One or Bathurst, you’ve got to look after it. You can’t change it half-way through or go for a new set of tyres. Once you’ve got your product you’ve just got work with it.”
Dressage has also been a key.
Waller uses an arena at Rosehill to help modify the routines of many of his horses and in his years-long battle to massage the mind of Nature Strip, he has turned to the equine pursuit to help calm him.
The champion trainer has also employed an equestrian mentor to work on different routines for his horses away from the track.
“Touch wood but [Nature Strip] is a very supple horse, he’s nice and loose and dressage is a big part of that,” Waller said. “I know myself, I go for a run around the track and I get bored. I can’t push myself and you just need to keep them active and looking forward to their work. Training horses is not rocket science. Keeping horses happy is a big part.”
Says Williams: “The first time I rode him in [the dressage arena] and it was like he had done something like this before somewhere. He was very sure footed trotting over poles and some of them that have never done it before, they sort of trip and stumble a bit over them.
“But he knew exactly where he was putting his feet. Horses are like humans: some of them will pick things up quicker than others.”
James McDonald will have the chance to win back-to-back The Everest titles at Royal Randwick on Saturday. He knows better than most what he’s finally riding.
“He’s conserving energy, and he’s never conserved energy in his whole life,” McDonald said. “He’s still a nine-time group 1 winner – and he’s just starting to work it out.”
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